Many days later, having spent a restless night worrying about freedom, Seamus O’Neill opened one eye as the morning sun forced its way into the control cabin of the Eamon De Valera. There was a naked woman standing at the entrance hatch, her strong young body bathed golden in the rays of the sunrise. She was gazing at him with tolerant adoration. Quickly he closed the eye.
Ah, the woman will be the death of me. Wasn’t it bad enough, her laughing at me every inch of the way from the Great Lake? She wants to make love at this heathenish hour of the morning, and myself trying to decide whether to go into that damn City today.
He sighed quietly for fear of stirring up her pagan passions even more if she knew he was awake. The last thing he’d expected was that the woman would turn into a comic. She had barely smiled till they got to Hyperion. Now she was laughing and dancing all the day long, even with the two of them exhausted.
She must have always been a comic, just hiding it from me so I wouldn’t know what I was getting caught in.
He was afraid again, but it passed quickly. Her unexpected humor had kept him going when he was ready to give up, down the long, twisting animal-infested paths from the Great Falls.
Drat the woman. She says the same things she said before our fight, but now they’re a joke. What am I going to do with her? He knew what she wanted him to do … it’d wear a man out.… It all started the day after they had seen the hordi by the lake.…
That morning he awoke to find Marjetta gone. The carbine was gone with her. A weather change dissolved the lake mists, the wind was brisk, the sun shone warm. She had probably gone off to do some exploring—he hoped.
She was back, eyes dancing. “We’ve found our waterfall, Seamus O’Neill. Sure, if you had ears like a Zylongi you would have woken up this morning to hear its roar. Hurry, darling, it’s the most amazing thing you’ll ever see.”
Seamus had seen a lot of marvels in various parts of the galaxy, but the Great Waterfall of Zylong took the prize. Almost without warning the whole lake spilled over into a valley half a mile below. They could not see the other end of it, lost as it was in the rainbow mists. The fall was dazzling in the sunlight; the spray blew in their faces, soaking them. O’Neill and Marjetta hugged and danced.
“Geemie…” Her face turned glum, her fingers dug into his arm. “If we get through all this, will they let you back on Tara?”
Why, of all times, would she pick now to ask me that?
“Oh, I think my friends will have enough political power to get things set up for me,” he said airily. Where’s the woman going now?
“Will Deirdre help?” And then, seeing the surprise on his face, she quickly added, “You remember. You told me about the ugly old religious leader who was your friend. How old did you say she was?”
“Oh, eighty or ninety of our years at least, and ugly as sin.” He put his arm around Marjetta.
“In the middle of the morning with the most beautiful scenery in Zylong to gaze at…” she said reprovingly. “Geemie, you have no self-control at all.”
“Sure, the breasts of a beautiful woman will beat a waterfall for scenery any morning.”
“Zylongi men are not much interested in breasts. Do you have a fixation? Do all Tarans?” she asked maliciously.
“I’ll tell you what, woman. If you don’t like my fixations, you can go and find yourself one of those cold-blooded Zylongi creatures. Don’t forget you’re mated to a Taran, peculiarities and all.”
He was ready to climb down the side of the mountain to the base of the falls. But the woman was in her playful mood. She wrestled him to the ground, overcoming his not completely make believe resistance, pinned him on his back, and peeled off his clothes.
“Taran or not, my darling Geemie, you have a wonderful male body and I want it right now. You can play with my breasts if you want to, but hold still. I want to play with you.”
“That seems fair enough,” he sighed, willingly yielding himself to her demands. Sure, I knew all along, she was the proper woman. “Only stop tickling me, woman. That’s too much altogether.”
“No, I won’t. I’ll never stop. How do you like that?”
Ah, the practice has paid off after all.
So they played all morning, swimming in a pool at the edge of the falls, admiring the rainbows in the foam, wrestling and making love again and again and again. It was the beginning of a true honeymoon, an orgy of love that went on no matter what the hardships of their long march were.
And she can never have enough of me. That’s a little more than I bargained for.
Ah, but the Black Mood never did come back. There’s that, isn’t there?
So on the Dev that morning while she laughed and danced and sang her heathenish songs, troubled thoughts gnawed at his mind and heart. Margie he’d never give up, no matter what. And he meant it about bringing freedom to Zylong. But true Taran that he was, on later reflection he threw in a qualification that gave him an escape hatch from his spontaneous outburst.
They’d bring freedom to Zylong if it were possible to do that. Only he was not at all sure that it was possible. No one is held to the impossible, are they? What was the phrase the Lady Abbess used?
Ad impossibile nemo tenetur.
Right. Tomorrow was “go” or “no go” for the Iona. If they wanted to end the mission, this was the day to do it. He had made that very clear to them. He knew now they were listening, probably had been all along. If herself was meddling, unasked mind you, in his private life, she was certainly tuned in to his public comings and goings.
Ah, if we pull this off, they’ll be singing songs about me and my woman for a thousand years. Who was this Finn MacCool anyway?
But they had to make up their minds. Sure, I’m delivering you an ultimatum. Either pull me and me woman out of this heathen place now, or I’m going along with the conspiracy and we’ll invite you down, once we take over.
I don’t think we have much of a chance of winning, but it’s the only alternative. And I’ll be expecting your help, are you hearing me now?
None of this “poor Seamus” stuff while I’m providing early-evening entertainment for you. I’m not breaking any Rules exactly. Haven’t they been after asking me to join them? But either you pull me out now—you hear me, My Lady Countess, Abbess, Captain, Cardinal?—or you’re going to have to take full responsibility for what happens.
I’ll not let you slip away with any of your clever evasions, either.
That makes it pretty clear, doesn’t it? All right, you think that because Seamus O’Neill has proved himself a moderately adequate lover—no I’ll redo that, a superlative lover—success has gone to his head and he’s talking big with nothing behind.
Well, let me tell all of you something. I love the woman. I’ll do anything for her. I don’t want to have to choose between you and her, but if you force me to, you know whose side I’m going to be on.
Note, he added with a touch of placating reflection, a little bit of mental blarney, that all I’m doing is following the Bible about cleaving to my woman because we’re two in one flesh. You’d expect me to say what I’m saying.
And if good sex makes me a more obnoxious bastard than I was before, well, guys, you’re just going to have to live with that. Understand?
The radio banks of the Dev were open; they must know that. He would be alert for a signal. If none came, he could assume that they wanted him to proceed into the City with Marjetta to finish what she planned to start. He was afraid to think of just what kind of finish it would be. Iona didn’t need any more information. Zylong was in extremis; Podraig’s estimate of a fifty–fifty chance of a blowup seemed conservative—especially with the introduction of Marjetta’s revolutionary scheme.
He had moved from information gatherer to active participant, which was counter to direct orders from Deirdre. How did she and the Grand Council feel about that? Did they know the two crucial things he had discovered about the Zylongi in this romp through the jungle? The Zylongi, even the strong ones, were prone to intense culture-shock regression, and there seemed to be strong undercurrents of wit that sustained the intelligent and sensitive ones despite the pressures of their rigid society. Ernie’s often savage irony was a manifestation of this; Margie was supported by her sense of how ludicrous their hopeless situation was.
She stopped her cavorting, came to him, and put a cool, tender hand on his forehead. I can’t help myself, I’ve fallen in love with the woman.
“Do you really want to go back?” she asked gently, as she had last night, “because if you want to take our chances in space, I’ll come with you.”
“Do you want that?”
“No. I have an obligation to my people. But now I have an obligation to you too. I will do what you want.”
Hear her? Two in one flesh. Just like me.
“Well,” he had told her last night, “let’s think about it tonight and make up our minds tomorrow.” Now it was tomorrow, and she wanted to make love again. Which, for all his complaints about exhaustion, was what he wanted too. She was so deliciously, wonderfully, irresistibly beautiful, especially when her clothes were off.
“What I want now is you, woman.” He grabbed her arm and wrestled her to the control couch. She giggled and pretended to struggle and then pulled him down on top of her. He held her immobile and drank in her loveliness.
“You are so beautiful, my love.”
“Thank you,” she twisted in mock resistance.
“And your beauty only reveals who and what you are. Marjetta’s body is not as beautiful as she is.”
“Are you going to make me cry or are you going to make me love you?”
“How about both?”
“That sounds nice.… I like that. Do it again.”
“Glutton.”
“It’s your mouth, not mine.”
All right, if it wasn’t for the joy and pleasure of this woman, I wouldn’t be nearly so fierce.
“I’m happy,” he whispered to her, “for the first time since my parents were killed.”
“Yours too?”
“Mine too.”
“Do you want children, Geemie?”
“If you’re their mother.”
“Who else? … Oh, Geemie, that’s wonderful, don’t stop.”
“You’re not trying to tell me something…”
If she were pregnant, that would complicate things terrible.
“Just asking.… Oh … please don’t stop.”
Then he was too busy to think.
Later, while she was out in the jungle collecting fruit for breakfast, he returned to his reflections. If a signal came from Iona, they would certainly leave. Since it hadn’t come yet, probably it wouldn’t. Give them another half day, just in case there was a debate up there that herself wanted to sort out. He could decide to end the mission himself. A single alert message from his transmitter and protection from the monastery against the Zylongian phasers would be at his service—he hoped. Were he to seek refuge on Iona now, what would his reception be? Would a board of inquiry decide he was within his rights to end the mission, that in fact he had performed it at all? Or did continued silence mean the decision had already been taken—to write off O’Neill as an agent whose mission had failed?
Or were the Council and Her Ladyship, the Captain Abbess, waiting for developments? Perhaps the message to him was simply to go on.
He had made friends on Zylong—people he cared about, like Ernie, Sammy, Horor, Carina, poor little Retha, who was probably dead on the desert with whatever was left of that sad, brave troop of soldiers. And Marjetta—she whose strength and humor pulled them through the jungles, she who touched his life like no one ever had, she whose commitment to her people was placing her in extreme danger. How could he possibly leave her? How could he be the instrument of wrenching her away from her people now that they were on the edge of catastrophe?
She shook his shoulders … the same firm hands that had pulled him out of the sewer.
“Good morning, lovely lady,” he said brightly, putting his arm around her waist.
She kissed him tenderly. “Good morning, Honored Major. Fallen asleep again? Did I wear you out? Here is breakfast. Did you sleep well?”
Laughing at me again.
“I’ve had worse naps,” he admitted with feigned reluctance, pulling her down on top of himself. “Do I see by the light in your eyes that your passions are raging again? So soon?”
Her hands lovingly caressed his face. Ah, it is the tenderness … the terrible tenderness that wrenches your heart, scaring the living daylights out of you.
“It’s what the sight of you does to me, Geemie.…” Now the damn woman is crying.
Afterward, she sat next to him on the couch. “Are we going to the City?”
“Did you ever doubt it?”
“No.”
“Well, then, let’s wake them up with the news of our miraculous survival. Hide your pills in my medical kit. We’ll leave them out here for the time being. No point in risking their being confiscated in the City.”
Several hours later they were on a hovercraft with four soldiers and their commander, Captain Yens—who really did look like he was ten Taran years old—heading back to the City. All of his troops were members of the Young Ones. The conversation about the past several weeks was unhindered by the need to repeat official truth.
“Comrade Captain,” Yens formally addressed Marjetta, “we rejoice that you and the Hero Poet are alive.”
Marjetta returned, “Comrade Captain, we rejoice that you are here to meet us. Poet O’Neill, may I present you to Honored Captain Yens?”
O’Neill figured that he’d better get to what was on both their minds. “I trust your respected future mate is well, Captain?” he asked with all his formal dignity, his throat constricting at the thought that she might not be.
Yens broke into a broad grin. “She has never been better, Honored Poet Hero Guest. I do not exaggerate. Marvelous things happened to her on her desert ventures.”
“Tell me, Captain, do you like the changes?”
“Indeed, Noble Hero. She has gained strength and … determination. I would not have it otherwise.” His eyes danced with the light of a man who was thoroughly captivated.
“Glad to hear it, Yens. You seem to be a man after my own heart.” O’Neill smiled.
“Thank you, Honored Sir. Could you provide the answer to one trivial question for me? What is an ‘idjit’?”
“Ah, well now, he’s a kind of high-powered amadon,” Seamus replied wisely.
“I see, sir. Fascinating.” He looked a little puzzled.
Much had happened in their absence. The death of the Fourth Secretary had been announced as simply a “tragic accident.” The Sixth Secretary, it was rumored, had assumed power. “The old fool,” snapped Marjetta. “During Festival he pursues maidens.”
The Committee, already inept and stodgy, was now even less able to cope with its problems. The campaign to dispose of Marjetta was dropped, Retha and her troops were allowed to return unmolested. Narth’s death removed the threat of the Outsiders and other denizens of his “empire.” In the City, the Hooded Ones were becoming still bolder. With the confusion and drift at the top, the chances of the Young Ones increased. The Committee would move against no one before harvest.
“Are you with us, Marjetta?” asked Yens eagerly.
“Until death, Yens.”
“Until freedom,” he amended.
All their faces shone with the fervor of commitment. Brigid, Patrick, and Columcile, they have imaginative slogans.
Yens asked Marjetta urgently, “You have the pills?”
“I have. They are safely hidden.” Her eyes glowed with a martyr’s enthusiasm. A Roman maiden—no, a Roman matron, ready for the lions.
“Major O’Neill is with us?”
“Of course,” she responded decisively.
Hey, wait a minute, fellows, I didn’t volunteer for anything.
They all turned to him. “Freedom, Seamus O’Neill!”
“Freedom, indeed,” he said, without any particular enthusiasm.
They didn’t notice.